Following the Vikings’ embarrassing 31-3 loss to the Packers on Sunday, Brett Favre dodged questions about whether or not he’s committed to playing out the rest of the season.

“I would never have expected to be in this situation,” Favre said. “Mathematically I think there is still some hope. I hate to use Jim Mora’s comments about playoffs. I can’t even think about that. I know there is still a slim chance, but come on. We’ve got to play a lot better than we played today and last week.

“I came back for a Super Bowl, you’re right. Also [there is] a chance that that doesn’t happen, probably a better chance that we don’t. And there’s a way better chance that you won’t play as well as last year. … But this is a little surprising. Again, I’m just going to go home and … I don’t want to say ‘think’ about this game. Just re-evaluate tomorrow.”

Favre isn’t going to retire. He may want to because he’s not going to win a Super Bowl, but he’s not going to go out as a quitter. He’s all about image and if he walks away now, the last thing everyone will write about him is how he abandoned his teammates when he knew there was no shot of winning a title. He and the Vikings may get their asses kicked the rest of the year, but that’s a better outcome to him than having the media call him out for the selfish player he is.

The Vikings should almost hope for him to retire. Not only is he a disaster on the field but every week he plays is one that Tarvaris Jackson won’t. Favre isn’t coming back next season and the team needs to evaluate Jackson. Lord Favre will never stand for a benching, but that would be the smart thing for Minnesota to do at this point. Why play a half-motivated Favre when they need to see what Jackson brings to the table? At 3-7 the rest of the season isn’t about winning for the Vikings – it’s about figuring out who will be around next year.

Leave it to Favre to send mixed messages about his future. This will be an interesting situation to follow over the next couple of days.

Bench Brett Favre. At 3-7, there’s really no reason to keep playing him and he’s shown time and time again that he’s only about himself. Bench him and move on.

Favre isn’t coming back in 2011 and why would the Vikings want him to? It’s time to see what they have in Tarvaris Jackson because he may be around past this year. Favre won’t.

Favre’s effort in the Vikings’ 31-3 loss to the Packers on Sunday was pathetic. His final stat line (17-of-38 for 208 yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT) would be fine if he were a rookie, but he’s a veteran with plenty of motivation to beat his former team and maybe get his team back on track in the second half. Instead, he was highly inaccurate, he missed open receivers and he was shown refusing to talk with offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell on the sidelines. Grow up, Brett.

Brad Childress won’t (nor shouldn’t) be back next year. But he needs to play Jackson. It doesn’t matter that Favre is a proud veteran because he’s brutal right now. If he weren’t a legend he may have been benched weeks ago. Jackson may not be the answer but it’s hard to argue that Favre gives the Vikings their best chance to win now. And seeing as how he won’t be a part of their future, it’s time to move on.

Hey, the Vikings took their shot last year and they came up a little short. They went back to the well this year and now realize that it’s bone dry. So regroup. They still have Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin and Jared Allen. They’re not in complete disarray but they need a quarterback. Can Jackson be their man? How will they know if Favre continues to start?

The season is over. If Favre doesn’t want to go to the bench, then cut him. It’s time to look towards the future.

After his team ran up the score in yesterday’s 34-3 win over the Cowboys, I found it comical what Vikings head coach Brad Childress said in his post game presser:

“As Lou Holtz used to say, ‘It’s our job to score points. It’s their job to stop us from scoring points.’ That happens. It wasn’t rubbing it in. It’s just taking care of business and being aggressive at the end of the game.”

After spending some time reading people’s opinions on this topic, it appears that many Minnesota fans are taking Childress’ stance. Hey, the Cowboys’ defenders are paid to stop opponents’ offenses. So if they didn’t want to be scored on, then they shouldn’t have quit on that final play. Also, Keith Brooking is a crybaby whiner that should go back to his crybaby whiner mother and have her feed him out of a bottle labeled: My Little Crybaby.

The other stance that Minnesota fans seem to be taking is that Brett Favre should now be treated like a baby bird and protected at all cost. With the way they’re backing Favre’s every move right now, I wouldn’t be shocked if a group of Viking fans attempted to eat some food and regurgitate it back into Brett’s mouth.

Of course, there are a great deal of people that think the Vikings are classless for what they did, or at the very least displayed poor sportsmanship.

But regardless of what stance you’ve taken on this topic, it’s hard to deny that it was an unnecessary move for the Vikings. The Cowboys were out of timeouts, they couldn’t stop the clock following the two-minute warning and therefore it was virtually impossible that they were going to erase a 24-point deficit at that point. It’s not like this is the BCS and the Vikings needed style points – the game was over and therefore there was no need for a pass in that situation.

I wonder how Minnesota fans that have fully endorsed what the Vikings did would have acted if Favre snapped his femur while dropping back to pass. Think about the outrage that would have ensued had the Vikings’ Super Bowl hopes been dashed on a meaningless play late in a game that they already had locked up. Fans would have been calling for Childress’ head instead of wanting a picture of him and Favre re-painted to resemble “The Creation of Adam” on the Metrodome’s ceiling.

Forget the fact that Brooking and the Cowboys should have stopped the Vikings if they didn’t want to be embarrassed. It was a flat out stupid decision and an unnecessary risk by Childress and Favre to throw in that situation and they’re fortunate that something disastrous didn’t happen.

There is an unwritten rule in sports about not running up the score when you have an opponent beaten. About the only exception to this rule is if said opponent had run up the score in a previous meeting.

On Sunday, the Vikings had their foot firmly placed on the Cowboys’ neck late in the fourth quarter. Up 27-3 with only two minutes remaining and the ball inside Dallas’ red zone, Minnesota could have ran a play on fourth down and not add any further embarrassment for the Cowboys. Instead, Brad Childress decided that one more score was in order and Brett Favre hit Visanthe Shiancoe on an 11-yard touchdown pass to put the cap on a 34-3 Vikings’ victory.

After the play, Dallas linebacker Keith Brooking went to Minnesota’s sidelines and started screaming at Favre, presumably because the Vikings decided to run up the score. Following the game, the FOX NFL Sunday broadcast pair of Jimmy Johnson and Terry Bradshaw debated whether or not Brooking and the Cowboys had a right to be upset. Johnson said Dallas should have stopped the Vikings if they didn’t want to be embarrassed, while Bradshaw claimed that it was a classless move by Minnesota.

Personally, I side with Johnson on this debate. If you don’t want a team to run up the score, then stop them. If you don’t want an opponent to embarrass you, then don’t embarrass yourself by getting into that position. After all, this isn’t a 7-year-old Pop Warner league – it’s the NFL. And don’t whine about it Cowboys – send a message that you’re not going to take that.

That said, I fully believe in karma and think Favre and Childress will get what’s coming to them. There was no reason to throw the ball in that spot and even though I agree that the Cowboys should have stopped them, it was still a classless move by the Vikings.

I’m sure I’ll catch some heat from Brett backers, but Favre’s act is getting tired. As a NFL fan, I loved watching him play this season and have always appreciated his enthusiasm for the game. But he pranced around the field today like a freaking ballerina on a mixture of coke and caffeine.

I won’t necessarily be cheering for this outcome, but I wouldn’t hesitate to crack a smile if the Saints rout the Vikings next Sunday.

Brett Favre told SI.com’s Peter King that he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to play against the Packers yesterday because of a groin injury. Favre claims he suffered the injury last week in practice and then re-aggravated it in pregame warm-ups.

“I told T-Jack [backup Tarvaris Jackson] and [offensive coordinator] Darrell Bevell I may not be able to do it,” he said. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to drop back very well. After I aggravated it, there was no way I was going to be able to move around in the pocket very much. We never called one bootleg the whole game. But we made it through OK.”

And now, I wondered, how was the groin four hours and a lot of lost adrenalin later?

“It’s throbbing right now,” he said.

Oh…come…on. Look, I don’t doubt that Favre injured himself in practice (he is 60 years old after all) and then re-injured himself during pregame warm-ups. I also don’t doubt that he told Jackson and Bevell that he was hurt and might not be able to play.

But I don’t buy for a minute that he was going to hold himself out. He wasn’t going to allow a groin injury to get in the way of beating the Packers at Lambeau and if anything, I’m willing to bet that he wanted people to know that he was hurt just so he could build the moment up even more.

Some are going to look at this as the “gritty” Brett playing through pain; I’m sure ESPN is already salivating thinking about the story. But I think this guy has a lot of people fooled.

Maybe I’m being to cynical and over thinking this, but it’s Brett’s comments that bug me the most. If King asked him how he was feeling and Brett said, “Well Pistol Pete, I’m a little sore because of a groin injury I suffered last week,” then I wouldn’t question him because the comment would have been more fly-by.

But no, Brett made damn sure to note that he might not have been able to play. To me, that’s just another prima donna move by one of the more underrated prima donna athletes of all-time.